586 PLANTS JAVANIC.E RARIORES. 



while his Bpithema, my Aikinia, also belonging to Cyr- 

 tandracece, he refers to Primulacece. 



It is somewhat remarkable that none of these writers 

 should have adverted to the affinity of this new family to 

 Besleriacece of Richard and De Jussieu, now generally 

 named Gesneriacece. This affinity, however, did not escape 

 Dr. Yon Martins, who in his elaborate account of Gesne- 

 riacece, published in 1829, 1 considers Cyrtandracece as 

 sufficiently distinct from that order in the absence of albu- 

 men and in having an inverted embryo : the latter character 

 he states on. the authority of Mr. Don, who, in employing 

 the term " Embryo inversus," can only have intended to 

 express its direction with respect to pericarpium ; such at 

 least is the real structure of those genera which he referred 

 to his Didymocarpea?, and it is certain that in the relation 

 of embryo to hilum both families entirely agree. 



Dr. Von Martius also notices the difference in the order 

 of abortion of stamina between these two families, which 

 is no doubt generally true, but admits in each of at least 

 one exception ; Sarmienta in Gesneriacece, agreeing with 

 Cyrtandracece in having only its two anterior or lower 

 stamina antheriferous : and in tjiis latter family Aikinia or 

 Ujjit/iema, which, as in the greater part of diandrous Ges- 

 neriacece, has its two posterior or upper stamina perfect. 



There is indeed another, and that a very remarkable, 

 distinction noticed in the position of the lobes of the stigma, 

 which in Gesneriacece, according to Von Martius, are placed 

 right and left in relation to the parts of the flower, and 

 consequently opposite to the lateral parietal placentas; 

 while in Cyrtandracece the lips of the stigma — for so it is 

 necessary to express the fact in this family — are anterior 

 and posterior, and therefore alternate with the lateral pla- 

 centas ; the latter being the ordinary relation in unilocular 

 ovaria, where the placentas and lobes, or rather lips, of 

 stigma, correspond in number. This difference, however, 

 even were it fully established, would hardly be available 

 here as a technical distinction, several genera in each 



1 'Nov. Gen- PL Bras.' iii. p. 72. 



